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States Claim There is No Match for Microsoft
Bergkamp10 writes "State antitrust regulators have dismissed companies such as Google and Mozilla Corp, and software technologies such as AJAX and SaaS as "piddling players that pose no threat to Microsoft's monopoly in the operating system and browser markets".
According to the report ten US states, including California, New York and the District of Columbia have called for an extension of monitoring of Microsoft's business practices until November 2012.
They claim that little has changed in the OS and browser spaces since the 2002 antitrust case ruled against Microsoft. In their most recent brief, the states countered Microsoft's contention that Web-based companies — Google, Salesforce.com, Yahoo, eBay and others — and new Web-centric technologies constitute what Microsoft dubbed a "competitive alternative to Windows."
Not even close, said the states, claiming that while these companies' products provide functionality for users they still rely on Operating Systems and browsers — the two spaces where Microsoft dominates.
Experts were apparently even more damning, claiming competition in the market has not been restored since 2002 and that the collective powers of Google, Firefox and Web 2.0 are about as effective as a one legged man in a butt-kicking contest when it comes to unsettling Microsoft's monopoly of the market."
The governments of these states will no-doubt still gladly accept campaign contributions from Microsoft...
We won't know that there is competition in the marketplace until another monopoly has replaced Microsoft's monopoly. Just as we did not know there was competition for IBM until Microsoft's PC monopoly replaced IBM's mainframe monopoly.
As much as I don't think the antitrust monitoring should be removed, and as much as I hate to say it: Apple is hard competition.
Unfortunately, however, no matter how much people monitor and complain, the corperate-friendly USA will just give them a slap on the wrist and say, "Bad Microsoft! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back ot using internet Explorer and Windows Messenger, and bombing those damn terrorists!"
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
Microsoft is Microsoft's own worst enemy. While I applaud the intentions of the Justice Department in attempting to impose a longer period of fine-grained monitoring on Microsoft's activities, I think they're missing most of the "big picture" here. Popular news and media outlets are routinely running stories about the slow adoption of Vista by major corporations and small businesses alike. New sales of Office are apparently lagging, too. Basically, the old story of "what we have now is good enough" is, in many cases, happening all over again.
My personal opinion is that by the time consumers are truly "forced" into another Microsoft upgrade cycle, viable and attractive product alternatives produced by Google and others will already be gaining significant ground. Even in the face of what many consider corrupt business practices on the part of Microsoft, the market is deciding the best route, albeit slowly. It just so happens that the market is finally starting to feel the evolutionary push of technology moving in leaps, rather than a slow progression.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Microsoft is a convicted abusive monopolist (which is different from a plain old monopolist). Alright fine. Personally I don't agree that they are, especially now with the resurgance of Apple as a viable alternative. But really, compared with the old AT&T, Standard Oil, and especially the British East India Company, Microsoft is an amateur.
so much for the year of the linux desktop
Isn't that... bad?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
There's a one legged guy in the town where I live, he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. He's a nice guy, friendly and all. I've seen him kick a piñata to pieces with a single roundhouse kick. He landed awkwardly, but it had the desired result.
The moral is: never underestimate the one-legged guy!
I would say that to compare Microsoft in the post Sherman era they put Standard Oil and AT&T to shame. Apple as competition does nothing to change Microsoft's monopoly status. Every monopoly has competition. A monopoly is not defined by relative rather than absolute competition.
They're a convicted monopolist, how the hell is 'monitoring' going to make a difference? Hurry up and actually do something already. The EU are imposing fines, the US is just 'monitoring' them....
I agree. I used to get really exercised about M$, but then I started reading about Monsanto. M$ is greedy and unethical, but their behavior doesn't usually kill or maim people. Monsanto is another story.
I think their point is that Microsoft doesn't have significant competitors in the two areas in which they feel Microsoft had a monopoly: operating systems and browsers. Google produce neither (directly), and most of GOOG's value is in the search space, where Microsoft were never accused of having a monopoly in the first place.
Or in other words, the fact that General Electric has a market value around 340 billion dollars is irrelevant to the case against Microsoft. You could argue that Google has some relevance because all of their services are accessed via a web browser running on an OS.
not software. Furthermore, the ad-supported information services Google provides only partially and indirectly threaten the markets Microsoft currently has monopoly over.
The issue is not that Microsoft generates a huge proffit. The issue is that Microsoft uses questionable methods to achieve those proffits.
Examples include, but are not limited to:
Don't mind the extra X. Alex
MS is very successful at its current market 'initiatives' (forgive me, I'm not a business major). In this I would account for its major divisions like OS, Software applications, Servers, Xbox, and Internet.
... its late and couldn't come up with a better example).
Suggestions even 5 years ago that Xbox would beat or rival Sony and Nintendo in the console market was unheard of, the point being, that Microsoft has a 'monopoly' on a large and diverse business and consumer userbase. Apple comes out with the iPod. There was already a 'healthy' competition with MP3 players but when MS saw the numbers the iPod was making Apple, I think it saw a great opportunity. Ditto, I think the iPhone, the Blackberry and other PDAs, etc.
If the government can somehow restrict it from going into new markets and letting some healthy competition grow, I don't see this as being a bad idea. The threat isn't MS entering other areas of business in itself. The problem is its huge cash reserves. The money and technology component, I see, remain exclusive to MS. IBM have a ton of cash too - but IBM has changed its core businesses instead of trying to gobble up small and major competitions in a wide array of industries. (yes, the irony IBM is making the chip for the XBox 360
But it is not due to a lack of trying.
emt 377 emt 4
How, exactly, is Linux not a valid alternative? That leaves aside Apple, which is yet another strong alternative. And of course it leaves aside the dozens of other obscure-ish UNIX-like and non-UNIX alternative OS's people can use. And Microsoft has no pricing power over these other OS's, to boot. So it really dumbfounds and amuses me at the same time when people can sit with a straight face and claim Microsoft is some evil Monopoly.
How do Microsoft's accusers expect people to get other internet browsers if there is no way to access the internet pre-installed on the system.
There seems to be a gap in their logic.
Without the so-called 'evil' included browser, users either have to pay to get a different browser or get one from someone else who already has one.
Either way, it would be inconvenient for the customer, cost them money for something that up until this point has been free, and would cripple Microsoft's operating systems, especially if Apple, Linux, and other systems were not subject to the same restriction.
If all it comes down to is operating systems and browsers then there are alternative operating systems and alternative browsers that "do it (support standards) better than Microsoft does." I think that real crux of the complaint against Microsoft is that despite all of the Web 2.0 and other nonsense that is coming out, there still isn't a compelling reason for MOST PEOPLE to leave the Windows-centric world. For most people in the corporate world, Windows desktop and server technologies "just work" when they are deployed by people who have half a clue about the technologies that they are implementing. Just like Apple claims to not give two craps about the enterprise environment, I think that Microsoft has shown a similar philosophy toward the consumer market. So long as they keep getting those fat software contracts from governments and enterprises, they will let the consumers rot. I say more power to them. Let everyone run Apple and Linux at home. Just support an open document standard so that people can take their work home if need be and leave it at that. When it comes down to Exchange/Outlook/Office and Sharepoint server, there aren't any real alternatives that tie everything together into a seemless "workflow" (as the Apple people are so often harping about). I think that if Microsoft can setup their application stack to take input as and generate output to ODF or a similar standard, they can give on the pushing the MS Office requirement on the world. I doubt that it will happen, but that is just because they are greedy.
MS may continue to dominate OS and desktop software, but that is not the threat to MS. The world is moving in other directions that don't rely on MS's dominant products nearly as much. Regulators usually refuse to acknowlege that their work has become irelevent. For example consider the FCC's continued regulation of LATA boundaries to measure long distance charges (who cares anymore?) Governments might continue to regulate MS even as its earnings decline and its power fades. Maybe MS will remain regulated even as it eventually goes out of business (every company goes out of business some day).
So does that mean the fines, etc. brought against Microsoft were a failure? That they should have been much steeper?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The crux of the complaint against Microsoft is that they have a monopoly on operating systems and browsers, regardless of the reasons for that. It has nothing to do with whether or not other people provide standards-based technologies. The states are saying is that since the market situation hasn't changed, neither should the oversight -- that, essentially, until such time as the market diminishes their monopoly through whatever means, they will have to be monitored to ensure they don't abuse it the ways they have in the past.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I was always surprised that MS wasn't also slammed for Office. It is, after all, the sole reason they are a monopoly in the other 2 spaces.
Exchange exists as it does not because it's the best email/calendaring server, because it's not, but because it offered a better environment than Notes and met the X.500 requirements the government set out, well, sort of, they're actually not compliant, but that's a different story, something to do with case sensitivity....
There's far better email servers out there, and far better clients than Outlook, and far better calendaring servers. There's just not a client that ties them together as well yet, and that's a shame.
And just to bring it back on topic - the states are right - nothing has yet changed in the desktop space - MS is still the dominant by far player, the OS has yet to be replaced. (Hints of what might come after Vista are presaged by the wonders of the likes of cio.com, if you believe them. IE, by sole virtue of being "part" of the OS, is the dominant browser, but its market share appears to be rapidly falling over the past year or so, and may (hopefully) show the future trend of the OS. If you've tried the latest release of OOo, then you'll know that OOo is a viable replacement for Office, and a welcome one considering the pain that O2007 is causing some of us at least that are forced to use it.
I will predict that in the next 3-4 years, the landscape will change radically. MS will still be a powerhouse, but will just be the 400 pound gorilla, being much chastised and otherwise reduced from its former 800 pound size. ODF will probably become the standard, whether MS wants it to or not, and Office will fall rather rapidly from its perch. Look for this to happen within 12 months of 02003 being EOL'd and unsupported. Look for Apple to make further inroads in market share, as more and more people buy their laptops. Watch Dell implode as it loses the top spot. Watch Linux, probably in the form of Ubuntu, finally make inroads in marketshare, and possibly even into the business workspace. All this by the end of 2010.
Rather than mod me down - care to make your own predictions?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Our slap-on-the-wrist "punishment" has done jack-shit for 5 years. I know! Let's extended for another 5 years! That ought to do it!
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Also anti-competitive pressures on PC manufacturers to bundle Windows, anti-competitive pricing (co-marketing in particular), anti-competitive site-licensing, etc. This is there offensce.
Also network effects.
I do think you are right about the monopoly in the mind of the consumers. Everyone I know of who has been persuaded to try Linux or MacOS prefers them: but it remains hard to persuade people to try anything new (presumable because they think the learning curve is as steep as that of Windows).
there are no viable alternatives.
The thing is is there are viable alternatives however MS lobbyist keep using FUD to scare states from using these, including open source, alternatives. I'm typing this in Firefox running in Tiger, no I didn't upgrade to Leopard even though I have the dvd, on a MacBook Pro. For my office suite I use NeoOffice, the Mac centric version of Open Office. With it I can open and save documents in MS Office 2007's .docx format.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Monopolies don't require that no choice exists on an individual level, only on a larger marketwide scale. You could chose to live without a computer at all, that's a realistic personal choice but it certainly is not viable marketwide alternative.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The problem is not so much that MS has an OS and browser monopoly so much as that they have a monopoly on OEM bundling.
To destroy Microsoft, all one would need to do is;
1) Disallow Volume Discounts to OEMS. A standard price for Windows for all.
2) Disallow "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts. OEMS should be allowed to sell whatever OS they care to without penalty.
3) Stop hiding the cost of Windows in the price of the PC. The PC hardware should be offered at $X and the purchaser then offered a selection of OS and support options to choose from.
4) Force MS to adopted accepted industry standards and disallow the use of proprietary protocols and formatswhich are designed solely as a means to lock in users to the Microsoft platform.
Do these things and Microsoft's "monopoly" would disappear within a couple of years.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Is Microsoft a monopoly because no one can compete with it, or can no one compete with Microsoft because it is a monopoly?
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
No, it exists in data formats, communication protocols and application lockin.
When we have communication protocols, document and other data formats that are open and implementable by anyone, and when we have applications that are portable across operating systems, then there'll be no monopoly.
Neither will happen while Microsoft is running the show.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
There is very little binding force keeping Microsoft's monopoly together these days. The answer to the question "why M$?" is the opposite question "why NOT M$?" Ok, like 0.1% of you say "because they are evil" but everyone else wants an OS with the PC they buy that works pretty well. Even Vista fits the bill. Today, Windows dominates because it works better for consumers than other alternatives save OS X. The problem with Apple is that people like choice, and at least with MS, you get your choice of hardware vendor. And even under these circumstances, they are gaining market share. In fact, I contend that if Apple licensed OS X like Microsoft does Windows, we'd see Windows market share drop like a rock. That wouldn't be the case if Microsoft still had any teeth at all like it once did. Dell's even trying to sell Linux now. MS's monopoly is extremely fragile, and their days as a 95% market share owner are numbered, even if they got their teeth back.
The problem with these so called "Experts" and "Business Analysts" is that they simply lack the foresight to see into the distant future. Based on some petty statistics, they can predict the business trend for a next couple of years but they simply can't tell what's going to happen 10 or maybe 15 years down the line. Take them 20 years back, and these same "experts" could never have been able to predict that Microsoft would become such a behemoth as it is now.
So simply shut your eyes and ears when "experts" say some thing. Ten years from now they would be saying: Well, there is nothing that can displace Linux from the desktops. OS "XYZ" (some futuristic OS not Microsoft) is not remotely capable of offering a competition to Linux's monopoly and blah blah blah.
I personally just love it when avid Apple user chime in on a Microsoft monopoly issue. Please explain this to me. If Apple continues it method of marketing (which for most all of its products is extremely closed...you must buy their OS AND hardware or their iPod AND their iTunes or their phone AND the service with it), what would we all be saying if Apple had a 95% market share today? Wouldn't it be extremely monolopolistic and be taken to court as no OS or other hardware manufacturer could compete in that market AT ALL!!! At least Microsoft doesn't block other broswers from working and has an open market for CPU and hardware AND you can load other OS on the hardware that you don't have to buy from MS.
Don't you think that Apple will continue its marketing scheme? What if we lived in an alternate reality where Apple was 95% of the market? Don't you think they would be accused of the same thing but even more so? Stop your envy of market share Apple!!! You're no better in the way you do business.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
I'm pretty sure Linux.com was the first to report on Microsoft's 'Men in Black' lobbyists killing open source in Florida earlier this year. http://www.linux.com/feature/61481/
This research is flawed. Comparing Microsoft to Firefox is like comparing the U.S army to a golden retriever. I am not even sure if Firefox is "competing" with Microsoft. The article also fails to take into account Google's abilities. I am surprised that no one mentioned the rumored "Google OS" based on Linux that sprang up last year. Google is highly capable of basing an operating system on Linux, and I wont doubt that they can even create their own. I believe these experts are failing to see the big picture. Telling me Linux and Apple are not viable alternatives to Microsoft is completely ridiculous to me, and will probably cause me to cast all of your credibility out of the Window. How could a credible "expert" on operating systems say Linux and OS X are not viable alternatives? What's a viable alternative? What's viable? As for legalities, I do not think Microsoft is doing thing illegal.. only wrong. It's not illegal to use other peoples operating systems then tell your people to copy the feature with an ad-hoc, watered down version, that's not-exact-but-looks-alike-enough to pass. The OS market is predominantly run by three key competitors, two if you exclude Linux as I'm not sure it can be actually classified as a company. But these three competiting operating systems are actually similar in more ways than most would realize. Web operating systems are not replacing desktop operating systems.
All it means is that he has to work harder at kicking ass. In the end, ass is still kicked.
I mean that both literally AND metaphorically.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Nice strawman, but the argument has already been made and you can't reformulate it with propaganda. MS would love to also have search locked down but how many Operating Systems or Internet Browsers does google's search page ACTUALLY replace? You're an ass.
1. Good idea, but PC prices would skyrocket for a while. .doc (or .docx now) after a few upgrades kill their old files while their ODF files work fine. Provided, of course, MS doesn't sabotage the conversions and compatibility on purpose.
2. Even better. 3. Offering other OSs should still be the choice of the OEMs. 4. Disallowing proprietary formats could be going too far. Force compatibility with ODF, sure. But people will stop using
Ahem! Europe and Asia individually have much higher populations than the US and probably the same penetration of Microsoft products as does the US.
And whilst it could be argued that in large parts of Asia where the cost of living is lower than in the US, the prices for MS products are probably less than in the US, here in Europe we generally pay *MORE* for everything than in the US - the same in Euros or Pounds Sterling that you pay in Dollars.
So no - most of Microsoft's money comes from outside the US.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
And it's probably another example of Microsoft leveraging their monopoly (OS) to gain market share in a new area, the same way IE gained so much traction. Getting a monopoly is not bad (or rather, it may be, but its not illegal). Monopolies can naturally occur when one product is clearly superior, or its a new market just opening up, etc. Monopolies are evil when you use them to kill competition in another market.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
There are some great alternatives to Windows: Mac OS X and Linux, but people and businesses are still choosing windows. The problem isn't lack of competition, its humans' hesitation to adopt new technology.
Yeah, prices would skyrocket, but that's the point. Your removing the hidden cost and showing buyers that they have cheaper alternatives. You, in effect, jump start competition where it has the most affect. Money.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Google makes pretty big profits, and Apple and IBM don't do so bad. Red Hat and Novel are functional, your only commercial competition problems it these industries are Mandriva and Turbo Linux. (Heh heh...) Sun also provides and operating system that currently is technically feasible. So your USA is not going to suffer because Microsoft is forced to behave civilly. Does anyone know of an Australian operating system competitor? I'd like to give it a burl.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
I don't know if there is something that I am missing here, but why is it that I can go to the store and buy the shiniest new video game with realistic physics and lighting for about 50 bucks, but if I want an office suite I have to pay $300? I am a non-programmer so maybe someone could enlighten me, but it seems that an office suite that is updated every year or so should require fewer man-hours to make than any game. My papers sure don't look any better this year than they did the last. I tried to use wordperfect, and it seemed to work worse than it did ten years ago. Isn't this the first thing the government should be looking out for? I bet Microsoft could charge $20 for Office and still make money. I mean who really cares about Internet Explorer, it's free.
The argument about Operating Systems isn't so much because people need Windows for Windows' sake (with the exceptions of IIS and Domains/Active Directory, I doubt many businesses rely heavily on any feature specific to Windows itself) as it is because they need it for Windows-based software (well, I suppose you could call the Windows API a "specific feature of Windows itself" but that's not how people view it). As another poster pointed out, the software that organizations and even private citizens rely upon is often limited to Windows, with the Mac/Linux equivalents, if they even exist, being feature-limited or at the very least requiring substantial re-training and re-investment.
.NET but are explicitly tested and supported in Mono, but in general, software will have native code components that most companies don't see as worth the hassle to port.
The problem with this, of course, is that reversing that kind of situation is very difficult. Without MS actively contributing to Wine/ReactOS, there isn't much they can do to make Windows-only software any less Windows-only. Without a major increase in the market share of alternative OSes, there's little incentive for third-party developers to place much priority in cross-platform development. There's always Java, and I know of a few products that are developed for
By the way, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that IE is a real monopoly. Yes, it's still the only browser that supports ActiveX and some people still use that, but alternative browsers have become reasonably common - far beyond what alternative OSes have achieved ever since Windows' rise to dominance - and while it's certainly still common enough that people will develop for IE's rendering engine, you also see plenty of sites encouraging visitors to use alternative browsers. Additionally, most sites render fine on IE, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, etc. without any browser-specific customization; with regard to these sites, IE's market share doesn't even matter (it could rise to 100% or drop to nothing over the next month and it wouldn't affect the owners of those sites). Compare this to non-web applications, where true cross-platform is a fairly rare thing, and I'd say IE's market share should be much less of a concern than breaking the chicken-and-egg problem with Windows-specific software.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Popular news and media outlets are routinely running stories about the slow adoption of Vista by major corporations and small businesses alike. New sales of Office are apparently lagging, too.
Microsoft had a spectacular first quarter.
Tremendous strength in Windows, Office, and Server products. Revenues in each division up 20%. Microsoft Q1 2008 By The Numbers
Office 2007 at retail "sells like gangbusters."
Office commands 17.4 percent of all PC software dollar volume, including PC games. When people go to the store to buy software, there's a good chance they'll end up buying Microsoft Office." PC Software's Great Year [October 20]
The October OS Platform Stats from w3Schools are suggestive;
Vista at 6%. Up 4% from March 07.
Linux at 3%. Up 1% from March 03.
OSX at 4%. Up 2% from March 03.
ms has only a nonvoting portion of the stock. of course, this stock is worth several hundred million...
I heard about MS buying the non-voting Apple stock when it was announced in 1997, but after reading your post I was wondering what happened to the stock so I Googled and found this From Apple's 2003 SEC filing::
"In August 1997, the Company and Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) entered into patent cross license and technology agreements. In addition, Microsoft purchased 150,000 shares of Apple Series A nonvoting convertible preferred stock ("preferred stock") for $150 million. These shares were convertible by Microsoft after August 5, 2000, into shares of the Company's common stock at a conversion price of $8.25 per share. During 2000, 74,250 shares of preferred stock were converted to 9 million shares of the Company's common stock. During 2001, the remaining 75,750 preferred shares were converted into 9.2 million shares of the Company's common stock."
FalconShould there be a Law?
What do you want? The governments of these states are simply obeying the EULA. I am copying this EULA below for reference (bold emphasis mine):
Even if folks from MS read that, they too would have had a good laugh at those bloating statements.
As someone who worked 3 years in a repair shop, let me tell you-most of these folks can barely run Windows. They certainly can't compile,or figure out what to do when their crappy Lexmark printer doesn't have a Linux driver. And while I like Linux, I'm afraid that you would have to dumb it down so much for the "clicky,clicky" crowd that Microsoft caters to so well that you'd end up with an OS just as cruddy and slow as Microsoft's, due to the fact that you'd have to have everything turned on by default because God forbid they should ever have to learn anything.
I say let Microsoft have the gamers(which should be pissed over Dx10 being Vista only) and Joe Sixpack who thinks the Blue E equals Internet, while Apple will take the designers and those with the money for it and Linux will take those who aren't afraid of an OS install. The only part I really care about is making sure that OEM and other manufacturers have Linux drivers so I can run what I wish. Hopefully the Linux Driver project will do something about those damn Lexmark "all in one" printers that always seem to keep me from switching the poor folks off of Windows.That my two cents,anyway. I certainly don't expect the government to do anything good about Microsoft anytime soon.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Sounds a bit spicier than the norm for cases like these.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
unless it generates a good revenue stream I don't really plan to do much support
bingo
Ah but I wouldn't be in the business of programming, I'd be in the business of photography. If instead I wanted to be a programmer and run a software business instead of wanting to be a photographer then I would expect to support the software I sold.
FalconShould there be a Law?
the price tag has always put me off of looking any further at a Mac.
Today's prices for Macs are comparable to the prices of Windows PCs. While some Mac configurations cost more than comparable PCs, some cost less. The real problem with Macs is that unless a $2500 Mac Pro is bought Macs aren't particularly configurable. Only the Pro can be opened up to replace or add another graphics cards or a second hdd easily, or any number of other things.
Problem is, most folks have never even heard of Linux as a viable alternative.
This is oh so true. But as more PCs come with Linux preinstalled people will hear of it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The learning curve misconception was the reason I didn't want to leave Windows. I didn't want to switch to Mac because I had just learn how to delete files in Windows 3.11. I didn't want to upgrade to Windows 95 either. Luckily it was not my decision. I'm glad I use Mac now.
my opportunity to freely express myself with the potential persecution and hangings and such
especially the British East India Company, Microsoft is an amateur.
However whereas Microsoft has no substantial competition in it strongholds of OSes and office suites, the "British" Honourable East India Company had competition. The Dutch East India Company, the first corporation to issue stocks to the public, offered the British company competition.
FalconShould there be a Law?
But at least part of the argument is that with their monopolistic practices, Microsoft is stifling competition, and hence innovation, within the United States. Protections for large corporations like Microsoft have been on the increase in the U.S. in recent years, because there is big money involved. But if you let the big companies rest on their power, and not the quality of their product, then the new innovative products will be produced elsewhere, where they have a chance to survive, and at some point the large corporation will disappear, and all the good stuff will be somewhere else.
1. Good idea, but PC prices would skyrocket for a while.
No, they wouldn't. Retail prices of Windows would plummet to current OEM levels, but since hardly anyone buys it at retail, that's not going to make much difference to Microsoft.
It would most certainly *not* have the result the GP was after. Quite the opposite, in fact.
MS will certainly lose market share, and will suffer greatly because of the findings against them in courts around the world. MS have a major problem. All they have is the NT kernel - they keep polishing it, but it's still the old crappy NT kernel. Windows 7 will still use that same old NT kernel...
Ubuntu will help Linux gain market share - Windows is already losing out to it in many areas. Dell will e fine - particularly since they now ship Ubuntu pre-loads!
...it's paid for by consumers who buy Windows. The cost of development is included in the price of Windows. You have the option of uninstalling it, but you don't have the option of not paying for it.
Microsoft pre-installing internet Explorer with Windows, dropping a metaphorical nuclear bomb to end the browser wars, and then integrating it into the system, making it impossible to remove.
Microsoft pre-installing Windows Messenger/Windows Live Messenger, making MSNp the dominant protocol
Indeed. Heaven forbid Microsoft respond to their competitors (or spur them on) by offering equivalent functionality (or introducing new functionality).
Steve Balmer claiming that Linux violates Microsoft's patents, scaring away any potential switchers.
This isn't "scaring away" anyone who matters. The idea that it's scaring away anyone at all in the desktop consumer market doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Microsoft offering deals to schools and third-world countries, so the little kiddies grow up only knowing how to use windows and Office.
But giving away Linux to those same schools and third-world countries, so the little kiddies grow up only knowing Linux, would be A-OK ?
You can argue that not receiving this "gift" is no penalty, but if essentially your whole competition gets to spend heaps of cash for free, it is one.
No they don't.
I didn't say they do, I said they can. GP was suggesting they can't.
IIRC, they can't be forced to exclusively sell Windows or get discounts if they do so. Microsoft can help them out with their marketing budget a bit, though. It's kind of a "You only sell Windows machines, add '${company} recommends Genuine Windows Vista' to each and every one of your brochures and web sites, call the preinstalled versions 'Genuine Windows Vista/XP' and get $20m of marketing, free, annually" deal.
Exactly. So the same sort of "exclusivity contract" that can be found in every industry.
You can argue that not receiving this "gift" is no penalty, but if essentially your whole competition gets to spend heaps of cash for free, it is one.
If it weren't such an important part of their business, they wouldn't "have" to do it. You can not blame OEMs for trying to sell the product the majority of the market is asking for.
Look, there can't be a competitive market while copyright and patent monopolies exist. Microsoft have been handed monopolies on a silver platter by the same government as are now bitching about their monopoly. Well, I'm not fan of microsoft, but microsoft have just been acting rationally given idiots are willing to give them 20-year monopolies over fundamental tech. If you want to do something substantive about microsoft, then denying them and everyone else patent and copyright monopolies is the one thing that's sure to correct the market.
Or rather prices for PCs with Windows. I can't see why prices for PCs without Windows would skyrocket.
Offering other OSs should still be the choice of the OEMs.I agree, but offering a PC without Windows should not.
Rather than mod me down - care to make your own predictions?
Are you new here or what? You just went on a tirade against Microsoft, said how Linux and Apple were trending to take market share from them and sang the praises of OpenOffice.org. Then you invite people on Slashdot to mod you down. For what? You're preaching smack in the middle of a HUGE choir.
I'm surprised you're not +10 Godlike by now.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Depends on how you feel about rape. I'd have to think it would be a violation of trust, I didn't realise that Microsoft was also abusing their monopoly amongst the porn/snuff industry.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
The only reason Microsoft can currently hold this monopoly so effectively is games... There are no good games developed for other operating systems and there definitely aren't games offered exclusively for an operating system other than windows (At least no good ones). Sure, there are emulators such as WINE but these emulators can never run the game as well as Windows since it was developed exclusively for windows.
The solution is that the open source communities need to produce a viable alternative to DirectX for the game makers.
The win32 API is a train wreck in some areas, and overall windows is probably more complex than it should be, but there's nothing particularly wrong with the kernel.
Well, Linux still has that old Linux kernel and OS X has two old kernels. It all depends on what you do with your old code. Windows 7 can turn out to follow Vista's path of being a DRM platform first and an operating system second. It can turn out to be entirely different, focused on stability above all. It can turn out to be some speed-optimized environment crafted towards maximum GPU efficiency (if only to render the DirectX 11-based GUI). Everything can happen; the fact that NT is old doesn't change that.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Remember, though, OEM is a good deal for the manufacturers as well, especially when M$ sells systems with ridiculous hardware requirements.
... think of all the PCs that get thrown away (legal or not!) because they can no longer run the latest version of Windows. (Of course, these PCs would still have years to go running linux for firewalls, servers, etc).
Where are the feature & security improvements in Vista? I believe it's all eye-candy that looks suspicious like Mac & X desktops of the past several years. The biggest difference in Vista is the convoluted licensing / versions, and the need to go out and buy brand new hardware - something those OEM manufacturers are all for!
It would be interesting to see a "green" angle on this
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
We haven't mass produced anything, but I'm know we have produced several good prototypes of ingenious devices. And we modified the F-111 to have a much lower visibility to USA radar that was significant in our triumph over them during the war games in the late 1990's. (It is rumoured that CSIRO were the first to develop the psionic na- Hey, what are you doing here! I'm calling the policddwearjkejks.wlfal;adls
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Personally, I think it would be very interesting to see what would happen if #3 came to pass. I strongly suspect Microsoft's market share would barely be affected. I am certain that virtually everyone would opt for Windows (for the $40-$80 OEM price) over Linux (for "free"). There might be a momentary blip as people got suckered by the $100 savings, but it would fade quickly once reality set it. At least if this choice was available, maybe the Linux zealots would finally stop whining that "it isn't fair, please big government come and protect me from those big nasty corporations".
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
"Hopefully the Linux Driver project will do something about those damn Lexmark "all in one" printers that always seem to keep me from switching the poor folks off of Windows"
The problem is that ultra-cheap ink jet printer / scanner / copiers have little in the way of on-board intelligence, so the "driver" actually supplies a lot of their functionality, hence the fact that you can't use the the copy function when they aren't plugged into a running Windows PC. Writing control software for these types of devices is a lot more involved than writing standard printer / scanner drivers, so it's hardly surprising that they only work with platforms that their manufacturers bother to support.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Dunno about useful, intriguing maybe, but useful implies non-entertaining functions are the original purpose.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
The cruft built on top of the kernel, with layers of backwards compatibility implicit in the APIs to make it easy to port applications from Win16/DOS is the source of Windows' problems, not the kernel.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is one of those statements that's hard to deal with... If you say "Yeah! stick it to them!" because you hate Microsoft or some other advocacy reason, then you have to also realize that you're agreeing with them that your choice of non-Microsoft OS/software has been declared by them to be junk.
;)
If you disagree because you think your choice is viable, then you're saying they're wrong and that goes against your advocacy.
Why does everyone seem to assume that there will necessarily always be one superdominant monopoly player in the computer industry?
If Microsoft had not risen to become what they are, there would be none. There would be standards that most people follow, and at least a half-dozen different OSes that implement them sharing the lion's share of the market.
When Microsoft's power is finally broken, I expect that a similar situation will result. Apple will gain marketshare, sure, and so will Linux. But eventually, as people are forced to come to understand, at least to some degree, what an OS really is, more viable choices will appear.
I seriously doubt that when Microsoft's monopoly disappears, it will be replaced with another similar monopoly.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Yes, there are technical alternatives.
Even, contrary to what some say, technical alternatives capable of being implemented in large institutions.
There are still no alternatives in the _common_ _perception_ of the market place. There are no alternatives on TV.
Well, the Mac is on TV, but it is most definitely _not_ an alternative. Jobs would have to let it be legally installable on whitebox hardware first. We're not just talking about letting Dell and HP make and sell Mac OS pre-installed boxes. Your local integrator has to be able to install it, without too many hurdles, and at a cost that leaves him some profit.
So, the technical alternative on TV is neither a marketplace alternative nor a market alternative. And Jobs _can't_ push the Mac OS into full confrontation in the marketplace like that until he has something to fight MSOffice with. (OpenOffice is close, but still not quite there.)
No (valid) Linux distro is on TV. It has no presence in the perceived market. So, while it is a technical alternative and a market alternative, it is not a _marketplace_ alternative.
So, one step which could be taken is for RedHat and IBM to start pumping ads into the prime-time TV stream.
Or, Microsoft could (be ordered to) get out of the stream.
(And we may need to put similar restrictions on iNTEL, if they fail to convert their Classmate project into a machine that meets the OLPC specs and offer OLPC as an alternative on it. The "iNTEL Inside" labels are they same kind of thing.)
Of course, we don't want to suggest that RedHat and IBM start trying to bribe and threaten people, even if they could afford to get in a bribing war with Microsoft.
One relief I could think of that might not be unreasonable for a court to order when a company continues to behave like Microsoft. Strip them of all their patents and bar them from obtaining more patents until their market presence drops below 50%. (Trade one monopoly for another.)
To paraphrase Robin Williams: "But senator, monopoly is just a game, I'm trying to rule the f'ing world"
~Vexed and loving it!
...I'm far too lazy to do anything responsible and researchly like looking up SEC filings, but I thought I remembered that Microsoft had then sold almost all its Apple stock?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I agree with you 100%. Office is glue that holds the MS juggernaut together.
To destroy Microsoft, all one would need to do is;
1) Disallow Volume Discounts to OEMS. A standard price for Windows for all.
2) Disallow "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts. OEMS should be allowed to sell whatever OS they care to without penalty.
3) Stop hiding the cost of Windows in the price of the PC. The PC hardware should be offered at $X and the purchaser then offered a selection of OS and support options to choose from.
4) Force MS to adopted accepted industry standards and disallow the use of proprietary protocols and formats which are designed solely as a means to lock in users to the Microsoft platform.
Do these things and Microsoft's "monopoly" would disappear within a couple of years. No. 1 is illegal and we will not see this happen. Discounts has never been illegal or Black Friday shopping spree will never happen.
No. 2 has already happened, and does not seem to have any effect. That's what the original oversight contains after all.
No. 3 is same as no.1. Regulating how companies should do business (as in determining how they should sell their product) will not be popular. As of today, there are no recourse to prevent that from happening, only when after it happens.
No. 4 also not going to happen? Example: Forcing Microsoft to use ISO standard like ODF instead of their own non-ISO OOXML is not going to work, especially if their competitors are not bound by the same rules. Having a proprietary file format is legal after all.
Monopoly is not illegal, abusing it is illegal. That's why all antitrust cases against Microsoft centered around the monopoly on operating systems. Have Microsoft ever being sued for anti-trust violations based on their monopoly on office suites? Never IIRC. Why is that? Microsoft seems to have a license to do all it wants with its monopoly on Microsoft Office (which is even stronger than its monopoly with Windows). Why no one is suing Microsoft for that? May it is because having a monopoly IS LEGAL after all.
The problem is that IBM didn't realize its position was in jeopardy until it was too late; remember that IBM wanted to get a PC into the market in quick-n-dirty style and getting Intel to supply the processor and Microsoft to supply the OS was just a corner-cutting move.
Microsoft, to their credit, knows their history; they relentlessly push into every single market, from game consoles to cell phones to every type of software simply because they are terrified that the *one* thing they overlooked is what came back to kill them. Sure most of their products stink and don't make money, but at least they've got a presence, regardless of how small or laughable.
I believe this is largely due to two major factors. First, Apple isn't a huge company. Yeah, they're worth plenty, but they don't have anything like the number of employees that, say, Dell has, and, though I wouldn't even know where to go to look it up, I rather suspect their budget is similarly smaller. That means that they can't easily afford to make the thousands of different configurations that are possible with Dell.
The second reason is one of philosophy: Apple has always been very much about not confusing the user (sometimes taken to extremes: see the one-button mouse). I can tell you from personal experience that even smart, moderately computer-savvy (for a non-geek) people trying to look at stuff on Dell's site can get very bewildered by the dizzying range of options. Apple's way gives very clear, easy-to-understand product lines, with a few different choices within those lines, and then a small amount of build-to-order customization available. It's not going to satisfy a geek who really likes to build boxes from scratch, but plainly, Apple doesn't care.
Maybe if they grow to 50 times their current size, then they'll be both willing and able to cater to all the different market segments that Dell does, but for now, it's just not what they do. It means that some people can't find a computer that really fits them at the Apple Store—but I guess Apple's willing to live with that. It's really not easy to be all things to all people, and do it well for every one of them.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
A monopoly is not a company that dominates a market. It is a company that stifles all competition and unlawfully does not allow new entrants into the market. Microsoft faces competition every day, and is clearly losing its edge, as can be seen with the failure of Vista and the success of Firefox. It is not fair to fine Microsoft for its success. If Windows and Office are truly so overpriced, it should be simple to create a product that has comparable/better features that can be sold for cheaper...right?
"To destroy Microsoft, all one would need to do is;..."
Sorry, but while some of your suggestions have merit, and some are already in place, antitrust law is not about "destroying Microsoft" so your entire premise is flawed from the start.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
The engineers who loathe this culture leave it; those who revel in it stay, get promoted, and keep it in place.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
MS Office was on the States radar but when they joined with the DOJ, MS Office being dropped was a requirement for the combining of the cases. IIRC, it was Microsoft who asked/required that MS Office get dropped for a combined case to go forward. I always thought it was foolish to drop that since it being a monopoly in its own right and being so tied to MS Windows, well, it just makes it part of the perpetual nature of the Windows monopoly. Can't get rid of Windows because we need MS Office, can't get rid of MS Office because .doc is used everywhere.
Also, I just that much changing with respect to Microsofts marketshare. Sure WinVista sucks but like WinXP and Win2k before it, after about 2 years for it being forced onto OEM machines, business cycles eventually start the uptake. Linux and OSS is growing because of it's cost and flexible nature of OSS in the hands of people who know how to use it. Not because Windows Vista sucks. As far as security goes, many businesses have found the dozen or so reenforcement apps required to surround Windows and make it somewhat secure to use. Those people don't want change because they just figured out how to stabilize what they have. Bringing in cheap Linux and OSS boxes are much easier than the rip-replace requirements of Vista. But hey, maybe the slow growth of Linux and OSS will become an awareness of less need for Microsoft and decaying Windows boxes will get replaced with Linux/OSS boxes on the desktop too. I just don't see it happening now. Too many IT manager zombies running around saying they'll buy it only if it's got the Microsoft name on it. Way too many too ignorant to know their jobs are on the line by staying with Microsoft because of the costs. Way too many believe nobody ever gets fired for chosing Microsoft. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Is *NOT* the operating system. We all know that Apple makes a better OS. Linux *could be* a better OS if it had some more polish (sorry /.ers).
You need to break the monopoly of financial and other business institutions relying on Excel and Microsoft Office. Don't tell me about Pages or Keynote or whatever other software there is. Sure, it's easy to use, very pretty... but Office is a product that Microsoft doesn't fuck around with, and produces (and I'm waiting for my hateful comments) -- AWESOMELY. It's the best software that Microsoft makes. Office 2007 is a great step forward in usability, stability, intelligence, and workflow. You can't interoperate your Pages information with your Keynote information, or vice versa. But in Excel, highlight some cells, copy, and dump it into a fully editable Word document. Then take a Visio diagram and dump it into the same Word Doc -- still editable. Collaborate easily on Sharepoint (now also part of Office). With Groove, you collaborate even further at the same time. And it's all stable, clean, and simple to use software with a powerful macro language (though I'm sure it's not the best) that allows you to automate and get information from different APIs (just walk into any financial institution and you'll see HUGE spreadsheets that download information out of Reuters and Bloomberg, email folks about updates, send updates to Blackberries formatted properly, etc).
Break THAT monopoly, and Windows won't even matter.
And don't mention Open Office. It's a joke compared to MS Office right now.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Neither will happen while the competing formats are "free" and "open source".
Hate to break it to you, but companies will not leverage their productivity on infrastructure that does not come with a support contract and corporate backing.
Simple law of economics. A company selling a product and contracted to support it has far more motivation to do it well, improve it, and keep it on the market than an organization that is doing it for the "good feeling" it gives them.
The feeling can fade, and they can walk away without the slightest care. It's much harder for a corporate entity with support contracts, and a profit-generating product line to do that.
Actually, they did leverage their exclusive OS OEM contracts to deliver O95 which forced large-scale upgrades to O95 across the board because its proprietary saved file format was incompatible with all other office suites. Since a lot of bosses at the time were getting new machines (back when the maximum 2 year upgrade cycle was in strong force, along with lots of new adopters) all the rank and file had to update too, as there was no way to read the O95 created documents other than via O95. Add on to that that the other major office suites of the time all ran more slowly than O95 solely due to heavy use of undocumented API calls into the OS you'll be hard pressed not to say they cheated, as leveraging one monopoly to establish another definitely falls into the illegal arena.
So they definitely "bundled" Office. They no longer do, because of legal action and the fact that they're already a monopoly and can now charge separately for it. If you doubt this, please explain the 142 copies of O95 certificates that came with Dell machines we used as file servers and ancillary domain controllers, on a GS contract no less. Couldn't get them without O95.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
It would be interesting to see a "green" angle on this ... think of all the PCs that get thrown away (legal or not!) because they can no longer run the latest version of Windows. (Of course, these PCs would still have years to go running linux for firewalls, servers, etc).
Or because they are so full of malware/spyware/adware/etc. that they are "too slow" and it is cheaper to spend $300 on a new computer than "fix" the "old" one.
I keep a few friends and one local business (again, owned by a long time friend) in year old PCs by just grabbing relatively new Dells from the dump... wipe the drive (typically full of spyware/viruses/etc) and put on Ubuntu and htey are happy...
(for those wondering, local county dump stacks computers and monitors under the shed where the used oil containers, half empty paint cans, and flourescent bulbs are kept until they are picked up for "processing". takes about 2 minutes for me to drop off my trash, park, get out, grab a box or two, and hop back in the van. occasionally i get a bad one, but when that happens it just goes back to the stack I got it from)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Vista may actually fail. Businesses are pretty much refusing it to the extent that when asked a year ago about considering alternative OSes, less than 1% said yes. Today, it's roughly 45%. If businesses defect, MS is done.
You also need to consider that MS OSes only run on about one third the servers out there, so there's already a large contingent of IT folks that know *nix systems and how to work with them, making the switch on the desktop even less painful from an admin side. I'll predict Ubuntu's gains along with OOo will make the switch almost entirely painless for most.
Other than that, I agree with your cynicism about people buying MS because it's MS and they'll not get fired for buying MS for people's workstations. However, all my previous companies have either eliminated or are in the process of eliminating the last vestiges of MS software from their production, staging, and QA systems (all those things that support production).
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Mail: qmail pretty much rocks. Problems with Exchange start with the JET DB it is built on, and go downhill from there. (Note that this is from the view of operations/support, not so much users unless they need support)
Any iCal standard server is better as they're not running in the "integrated" Exchange JET DB. (did I mention that Exchange's problems start with the JET DB?)
Clients, that's MS's strong point. They managed to put some integration on the client side for proprietary (of course) data and create an interaction between calendaring, email, and address books (the lynch pin). No other client I'm aware of has combined LDAP (address book) with mail and iCal support that I'm aware of, except maybe Apple which still has separate apps.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Is there any level of government that has a large install base of non-microsoft workstations?
no?
shocking.
News flash: Apple doesn't want to be Dell. They don't want to be in the commodity market, competing on price with razor-thin margins.
If they did that, they wouldn't be Apple. They are good at what they do, and they are not particularly good at what Dell does, so why on earth do you think they would want to try competing with them?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The true power of Microsoft stems from its Office Suite, which is not and never will be standards compliant. Most companies absolutely must have MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. There are no substitutes regardless of how feature-rich the competitors are. I've tried all of them. None work with MS Exchange, or MS-formatted documents as well, as reliably, and as stably as these programs do. Once you decide you must have MS Office you're pretty much locked into a Windows environment. Sure, you COULD get an apple, but that never really made sense from a cost/benefit perspective. As long as the world speaks ".xls" ".doc" ".eml" ".ppt" etc., we'll be using Windows.
Ah..Why don't you just say "Bring the army and bulldoze all of MS' office in Redmond"!! That would do the job much quicker..
You may have a point, but MS is hardly losing money to competitors by businesses not adopting Vista. It's not like all the corporations running XP have switched to Macs or are running Linux as an alternative. The biggest alternative to Vista is still XP.
"But this one goes to 11!"
As a Linux user from 1993, I am afraid that the truth is that Windows is quite good at two areas (besides markrting and Fud): printing and sound.
I bet all users have had problems with applications like skype locking the sound card out. I bet they have had all the sorts of trouble when printing.
CUPS is a good help, and basically done it right. Pulseaudio is a configuration nightmare, so is Arts and alsa and whatever. The truth is this: we must have for sound a free desktop standard everybody and anybody must use. Werther it is promoted from an existing sound server or build a new one from default, the truth is that sound is still an area that all UNIX based desktops find lacking.
Free Desktop is quite good at making up good standards. For instance, take D-BUS: activation and instrumentation done right. Fix a good sound server, promote CUPS to a standard to be used to print from any application (instead of system ("lpr ...")), and maybe we can tell the world aloud KDE or GNOME or XFCE or whatever running under X is capable of taking on Windows.
Francisco Colaço
But that is exactly the point. They're no longer just considering staying with XP, as that's not a long term solution, hence the change in stance about looking into alternatives outside of MS products. That alone is a huge shift. Whether it's merely an empty threat to brow beat MS into continuing XP support or the precursor of a massive switch in the OS desktop marketshare remains to be seen.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
At what point do you throw in the towel and acknowledge that the market isn't going to diminish their monopoly. Five years? Ten years? Fifteen years? The juggernaut isn't standing still. They are constantly coming up with new technologies and adopting technologies from other platforms and incorporating them into the Microsoft offering. I'm going to think about this post in ten years and probably realize how wrong I am, but for the time being I'm going to say that there isn't enough room left in "the market" for any sort of innovation to unseat Microsoft. Microsoft operating systems and applications do what the majority of people need their computer to do. The only thing that is going to happen in the long run is that Microsoft is going to become less profitable as alternatives spring up. Those alternatives will be just that... alternatives. At the end of the day it all comes down to crunching numbers, or formatting and presenting some text and graphics. Beyond that are the groupware products that allow people to collaborate as they crunch numbers and format and present their text and graphics. Slashdot is the perfect example. I'm typing this reply on PC. I became aware of the replies to my original post on my Blackberry. I'm sure that the people who replied to this did so using a combination of IE, Opera, Safari, Firefox running on Windows, OSX or Linux. I could have conjured up this reply on the Blackberry if I had the patience to work with the little keyboard. There are so many ways to accomplish the same task in this day and age that at this point we are literally arguing semantics and making value judgements.
3. is too much. It will hurt the small retailers more than it would be successful in breaking up the monopoly. Besides, we don't won't the walmart clerks supporting linux... or we'll just end up with more problems...
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
But not by monopolies. There are many, many behaviors that are allowed by normal companies that are disallowed by monopolies. Having a store go exclusive with one supplier is no big deal when there are twelve other suppliers available, there's still plenty of competition happening in the market as a whole, and that store can switch their exclusivity at some point in the future if they want for their own business reasons.
Of course not, that's the point. The OEMs have no choice but to accept whatever terms MS offers them, they have no choice but to do so, because they're in an industry dominated by a monopoly. If you don't do business with the monopoly, you go out of business. Nobody blames the OEMs for accepting exclusive contracts when there's only one company to go exclusive with, and refusing to go exclusive with them means bankruptcy.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
One of the real problems is that the last time there was competition in the OS Market for Intel Compatible systems was....when?
The late 80s! There are kids today who have gone through grades 1-12 and college without ever knowing a world where MS was not dominant.
Microsoft. Most of the home PC's I know of are still running W98SE (not mine, but everyone else I know). If it ain't broke, why upgrade it?
Ironically the main reason I started using Linux was that it, not Windows, would work with my soundcard, and I was lucky with my printer, I just had to click a few buttons to get it working in Kubuntu (unlike on Windows where it took 2 reboots, and installation of a load of software packaged with driver and a complete crash). Though I agree that hardware support is one of the main reasons people don't stick with Linux (and wireless is becoming the new printer nowadays). I see no reason why companies don't release specifications of their hardware, especially since there are so many Linux developers willing to make a driver for free.
Unfortunately, no laws will be passed to demand such specifications. More and more the devices we own are software layers over generic digital hardware (FPGA, microcontrollers). The companies are quite jealous of the intellectual property therein.
I did not mean, however, hardware support when I spoke about harsh times at Linux sound. Imagine you want to have skype rings, your favorite game and rhythmbox sound at the very same sound card. What a nightmare! On Windows, it is out of the box. If there was a standard sound server on Linux (being it jack, pulseaudio, don't know what else), all the applications would code to it. Now, Skype supports alsa (and bad), your game is likely to support only /dev/dsp, rhythmbox supports esd. If you bring up skype, forget the rest of the audio,
Bring us good sound and good, straightforward printing (CUPS is getting there) and the best desktop will be ours. BTW, I use 90% of my time Linux and open source tools, with the exception of the mechanical CAD.
I never said Apple wants to be Dell. I'm just pointing out the reason Apple isn't Dell.
You could add...
MS == MS to that list. Apple doesn't want to be MS either, which is why antitrust is a bunch of bull as well.
Does M$ stifle the market competition? Well, I believe everybody on here will agree that yes they do. To lay claim that their strangle hold is due to games, or MSOffice suite, well that's a bunch of crap. They stifle the market because they are allowed to by the people that refuse to attempt something new or different. The fact that MSOffice holds whatever amount of the market is irrelevent. And to say that you as a user are forced to use MSOffice is bull$hit, I work in the IT department at a University where I use Open Office and the ability to save documents in an MSWord format to fool everybody into thinking I use MS Office. Nobody can tell the difference. As far as games go. If you were a corporation making games for profit then you to would make those games for the product that is in control of the market, ie Winblows, err Windows.
The geek is obsessed with retail list for Office Standard or Pro.
The small business bundle for the independent contractor, the real estate agent, the suburban dentist working out of his home.
iWork 2008 for OSX is $80 at Amazon, Office Home 2007 for Windows, $125, with a three seat license.
The chances are good that someone in your family will qualify for an even cheaper academic bundle or as a Home User under their employer's volume licensing agreement with Microsoft.
Office 2007 for the price of S&H.
the .doc monopoly is broken. OOo works pretty well with .doc format. That's why there's a .docx format, and why it's such a pita (that'd be pain in the ass) to save a O2007 doc as a .doc You can't set it as a default, you have to manually change the settings every time, hence my OOo instance on my work laptop. I need to talk to people out in the world. .doc is the de facto standard, and .docx just doesn't cut it, nor does the brain dead O2007 configuration and interface.
So, I think you're seeing more than a backlash merely against Vista at the moment. It's also O2007. For those that weren't paying attention, that'd be two strikes in the PC space. I've also been an unfortunate Sharepoint subject. I can attest that whatever anyone says, Sharepoint sucks. Ditto for Groove. And there's the nVidia Quadra drivers on a Dell - apparently they can never keep it straight whether you're attached to a dock or a monitor or standalone coming out of sleep and it's a total crapshoot whether you'll be up or not. (Love my Dell, I really do, why oh why didn't I insist on a mac? The cost was the same.)
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...I believe by the start of 2010:
* Google will be making a "browser OS" much like Sun's Java Desktop and then we will no longer have an OS
but a browser OS. Probably use Firefox at first and then other companies will follow ala Linux distro's.
Linux small kernel will be underneath. The browser is already a platform. You could easily run some business systems on a linux kernel/X system that is in kiosk mode with a single browser instance serving as a VM. * All apps will be running in a jailed VM environment and ram/flash will be 1TB range to store the vm apps. I think you're about 5-8 years early on the TB RAM. Why, because once you hit 64GB of RAM.... somehow a bad quote comes to mind... but once you hit 64GB of RAM, you pretty much have most user applications I can think of currently and even extended in 3 years in memory with room to spare. That includes HD editing of full movies, or even cutting and pasting between two movies. Yes, you can expand that to more movies and eat up a lot more RAM, but then you're not really talking standard or even geeky users anymore. But even that aside, generally such tech goes to servers first, and it really hasn't yet. It usually takes 2-4 years for server tech to hit standard PCs. So I think we may see some servers with that capability by then, but that's it. Then there's the cost issue. Even at $1/GB that is a lot of cash for RAM. It would have to be around $0.10 or less, and that's 2 orders of magnitude cheaper than anything today. * Bootup will take less than 10 seconds because the "OS" files are stored in flash memory. I'd say it'll be less than 1s average, with an occasional 10s reboot. * PC/Phone/TV/DVR/Radio/all media is now one unit if you want. We are just about there already, the only thing holding us back is that incredible law, the DMCA and it's badly promoted DRM. Without both of those corporate serving pieces, think how far we'd go. * PC's are will be dirt cheap and/or bundled in TV's or the "phone system" or the "radio" for the people who don't
watch TV's. They're already bundled more or less into your DVR and HD DVD players. Yes, I predict Blu-ray for HD playback will fail, purely based on the fact that the tech costs almost twice as much to implement. It will find incredible life in PC systems as the new optical storage standard, and the DVD burner replacement will be BR writers that double up as HD DVD burners for HD video. * Newspapers will be distributed via a thinner version of the Amazon Kindle so you can also get internet. I think newspapers will be an electronic subscription you read on your unrollable/unfoldable "book" that is wirelessly connected to your cell phone(PDA/PC/etc) It should be fun unless we blow each other up or get sick and die by the Geese Flu of 2011.... We're certainly living in interesting times.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I don't use that many plugins and i don't go to malicious sites too often to experience the stuff you write about.
I experienced IE7 for about 2 hours, and Vista about 1 hour. It was enough for me.
My original post wasn't about the clever way of embedding plugins in a safer process space (this is something Mozilla should do as well), it was mostly about the nag questions, the sluggish performance and the redesigned (for change's sake) UI.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Mmmmmmm.....fruit.......
I am not a lawyer or legal expert, and the following analysis is based on various un-cited sources, including hearsay.
As I understand it, contract law theory & tradition already require that terms of any contract which would nullify the inalienable rights of any party be treated as unenforceable. It seems obvious to me that "Exclusivity" clauses in OEM contracts would nullify the OEMs' property rights, and thus be unenforceable, should any OEM try to exercise their legal right to do business with as many partners as they are willing & able. Evidently, this question has not been raised between the two parties involved. The right to do business with other software houses should not be forced on OEMs if they don't want it, any more than MacOS, and its cost, should be forced on consumers who don't want it.
I think that would infringe on legitimate property rights of Microsoft, and her partners. I agree that company is a problem, but it should be remedied within respect for their legitimate rights.
I expect the OEMs already have the right, according to common law & contract precedent, but do not have sufficient market incentive to exercise that right. Until exercise of such right is profitable to them, ie until they are motivated to do so by pursuit of happiness, who are you & me to force that upon them?
Microsoft effectively defines "accepted industry standards," due to the percentage of the percentage of the industry that adopts whatever Microsoft ships. The goal of defining and implementing standards such as http 4.0 is one I would appreciate, but to be effective, we would need to define standards based on some stricter professional criteria than what is standard in the industry. What those should be exactly I don't know, but things like the ability to function without any particular third-party compiler, framework or run-time environment is my first inclination.
I disagree. Your wish list does not include the implementation of strict standards within the market itself, so the market will continue to reward the same lack of underlying quality as it has since the micro-computer was introduced to consumers ~20 years ago. The root of the problem is not Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer or the combination of the two, as little as I like those two fiends. The root of the problem is a market that collectively doesn't care how the computer works, and in fact vehemently believes it must not be bothered to know, or care, how the computer works, but retain the right to regulate the workings of the computer.
My argument is not unrealistic, ivory tower intellectualism. Regulation of the economy and of particular industries do not accomplish their stated purposes -- cannot, in fact, accomplish their stated purposes -- because the market, which is always the root cause, remains free, and continues to exercise that freedom according to the same standards of quality, or lack of same standards, that caused each particular problem in whatever industry the public sets out to regulate, at any given time. In light of all that, I consider the prosecution of Microsoft to be largely a waste of tax money, based mostly on good intentions, but doomed ultimately to abject failure.
All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
And believe me, after working repair shop for three years I can tell you that there are a lot of poor folks that Linux would be perfect for, but they just can't afford to go and throw out a working all in one and replace it with a much more expensive Linux compatible just to get rid of Windows and the viruses that come with it. If an ndiswrapper for the sub $100 printers could be made that would go a LONG way when it comes to increasing Linux adoption. I personally could have converted probably 100 or more of our customers if I could have found a way to get those sub $100 Lexmark and HP all in ones to work reliably under Linux.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"Which is why I'm hoping that they will come up with an ndiswrapper for printers. In the same way that it is easier to fake the Windows API the wireless drivers hook to than all the funky firmware hacks the wireless companies use (I'm looking at you,Broadcom!) it should be a whole lot easier to fake the Windows API that those funky printers drivers call than to cook up a driver for all those cheap printers."
It really depends on the APIs that are being used, and how close the Wine versions are to Microsoft's originals. A lot of these printers "slot in" to the Windows GDI directly for both printing and scanning instead of attaching a full driver to the underlying device abstraction layer. This makes the drivers both smaller and simpler than many of the more traditional ones, but it also means that even a slight deviation on Wine's part from the way the Windows GDI will cause problems. Note also that in contrast to most "intelligent" printers, manufacturers tend not to publish details of the control mechanisms and languages / protocols that they use, so tracking down and fixing the source of any problems can be extremely difficult.
"I personally could have converted probably 100 or more of our customers if I could have found a way to get those sub $100 Lexmark and HP all in ones to work reliably under Linux."
Most "all in one" Lexmark boxes will print under Linux because there's an old Lexmark driver they specifically wrote for Linux that still seems to work with most of their modern low-end offerings (e.g. the 1200 series). Unfortunately, scanning with them is a different story altogether (unlike most stand-alone scanners, they're not TWAIN-compatible), so it's currently only a partial solution. Googling "lexmark winprinter Linux" will produce a collection of links to sites with "howtos" and downloadable components.
NB: people who don't want to be tied to Windows should avoid buying peripherals with system requirements that only list various versions of Windows. Few specifically advertise Linux compatibility, but those that list both Windows and Mac OS X (these are growing rapidly due to the surge in Mac popularity) will usually work under Linux with few if any problems. Whatever one thinks of Apple, the fact that each new version of OS X uses more standard UNIX mechanisms for interfacing with peripherals that previous ones did is resulting in a notably increased range of options for everyone whose OS also uses those mechanisms.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Well, the Mac is on TV, but it is most definitely _not_ an alternative. Jobs would have to let it be legally installable on whitebox hardware first. We're not just talking about letting Dell and HP make and sell Mac OS pre-installed boxes. Your local integrator has to be able to install it, without too many hurdles, and at a cost that leaves him some profit.
Apple won't allow OS X to be installed on beige box clones, at one tyme Apple did allow Mac clones but Apple lost more in lost hardware sales than they made in the sales of Mac OS licenses.. If the local integrator would make money then Apple would loose money. Apple isn't just a software company, Apple also makes and sales hardware. All to together Apple is a systems integrator, Apple just make things that work, the hardware and software work well together. And that totally ignores Microsoft. MS has already shown what it will do to those it views as competitors.
One relief I could think of that might not be unreasonable for a court to order when a company continues to behave like Microsoft. Strip them of all their patents and bar them from obtaining more patents until their market presence drops below 50%. (Trade one monopoly for another.)
What could be done to MS is to have it's Corporate Charter revoked. Corporations were originally granted charters if the corporation served the Public good. Once a corporation did not serve the public or common good it's charter could be revoked. The first corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company in 1602 by the government in the Netherlands. Corporate charters allowed those who invested in the corporation to limit liability to just what they paid for for the stocks they owned.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Once you decide you must have MS Office you're pretty much locked into a Windows environment. Sure, you COULD get an apple, but that never really made sense from a cost/benefit perspective. As long as the world speaks ".xls" ".doc" ".eml" ".ppt" etc., we'll be using Windows.
Not only does MS have an Office version for Macs but new Macs come with a 30 day trial version. Actually MS has used the Mac version of Office to experiment with, if something new didn't work right in the Mac version it wouldn't be in the Windows version. Though I haven't and won't use it, the MacBook Pro I got about 4 months ago has Office 2004. The suite includes, looking at the Office subfolder in the Applications folder, Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Look, there can't be a competitive market while copyright and patent monopolies exist. Microsoft have been handed monopolies on a silver platter by the same government as are now bitching about their monopoly. Well, I'm not fan of microsoft, but microsoft have just been acting rationally given idiots are willing to give them 20-year monopolies over fundamental tech. If you want to do something substantive about microsoft, then denying them and everyone else patent and copyright monopolies is the one thing that's sure to correct the market.
If you look at old posts of mine you can see how I used to support both copyrights and patents, though NOT software patents, but then I came out as opposing patents. I have to admit now I don't know if patents are good or bad. There are good things as well as bad things about them. I still support copyrights though.
Should there be a Law?
Thanks. I've programmed on Windows PCs but not on Macs or Linux, other than some scripts about 10 years ago. As for what languages I'll use, because though it's been about 10 years since I have programmed with it, I'm more familiar with C/C++ so I'll start with it. I'd like to try out Pascal as well, and have downloaded Free Pascal, and maybe Smalltalk. Before I do though I'll see what needs to be done for software written in these languages to run in Linux.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Similarly, Dell and Walmart (and Newegg and ...) are now selling computers that contain MS Windows or linux. Most people are as interested in this internal detail as they are in the brand name of their car's engine.
I don't think using car engines is appropriate in this case, car engine analogues would be more appropriate when discussing what CPU is in the PC.
You're not a normal person at all. Teenage boys know such things; engineers and mechanics know such things;
Possibly you're are. Growing up maybe a tenth of the boys, and some girls at that, worked on cars fixing and repairing them in my neighborhood. Myself, I've rebuilt engines and transmissions, repaired the breaking system, and did some body work.
Actually, Microsoft's choice of OS names will add to this confusion.
Especially with all the different versions of Vista. Linux has the same problem, only bigger as there's a bunch of distributions. Apple doesn't have as much a problem here, every 1 1/2 to 2 year releases a new OS with only 2 versions but people only hear about 1, the other is for servers.
It's entirely possible that Microsoft's downfall will be because of this. If they can't maintain their monopoly control of small-computer vendors, and those vendors are permitted to sell machines running linux, Microsoft could lose, and none of their customers would even know.
Actually I don't think small venders will have that much an impact. Most people don't get their PCs from small venders. What they do is go down to the local big box store, Best Buy, Circuit City, and what have you to buy a computer and while these stores may have a store branded computer they generally won't have one from the local computer builder. I think about the only people who buy from the local builder are those who want a specially configured PC, however if they know what they want, what parts and such more than likely they'll build it themselves. As you bring up above not many want to do that, what they want is to buy a computer and bring it open, then open the box and set it up, plug it in, and let it bootup.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Besides,it can't really be that much harder than those damned Wifi drivers.I've looked at those Broadcoms up close and there isn't really any hardware at all,other than a wire and a microchip-everything is being done in Windows. Plus,as cheap as HP and Lexmarks are,I sincerely doubt they've bothered to really change anything other than the look in years. I bet if I went and picked up 5 of the sub-$100 printers right now and checked the Api's,I bet they are all called for the same parts over and over.And it wouldn't really matter if you only got it right ONE time for a particular printer,because even if you broke it with the next release,at least system builders like myself could download the
While I love Linux on my laptop and wouldn't go back,until they have a way of hooking the most common peripherals up and having all or at least most of the basic functions work,I'm afraid the folks that need Linux the most,those that can't afford the Windows upgrade mill and who aren't skilled enough to do their own tech support,just won't be able to use it. The single mothers and families that are making minimum wage will always see it as easier to pay me $50-75 a couple of times a year to de-hose their box than to pay $200+ to replace a printer/scanner/fax that already does what they need it to.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"We are talking about folks that buy their PC from Worst Buy or Wally World and no less about it than their toaster oven. They just can't afford to go out and spend an extra $75-100 on an all in one to be Linux compatible-they simply don't have it."
One of the oldest principles of commerce is caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. People who have tight budgets but still spend several hundred dollars without doing some basic research on what they're buying are likely to end up being shafted, especially with computers, because a great many of the companies who sell them to ordinary consumers are counting on the fact that they can unload any old piece of rubbish on the unwary (usually with an overpriced insurance policy thrown in for good measure).
"Besides,it can't really be that much harder than those damned Wifi drivers.I've looked at those Broadcoms up close and there isn't really any hardware at all,other than a wire and a microchip-everything is being done in Windows."
There's a world of difference between a complex piece of machinery like a printer / scanner combo and serial I/O device such as a network card or modem. The people who write and maintain Linux printer and scanner drivers already support thousands of devices, and they'd have quickly added cheap combo printer / scanners if it was as easy as you seem to think, just as they'd have added open source support for the latest graphics cards if doing so was simply a matter of writing a wrapper around WINE.
"Plus,as cheap as HP and Lexmarks are,I sincerely doubt they've bothered to really change anything other than the look in years"
I've already said that there is a _major_ difference between low-end "winprinters" and better quality stand-alone devices from the same manufacturers, i.e. the fact that they have no on-board memory or intelligence. This means that there is no real page description language for the printer, no on-board fonts, and the scanner doesn't use any of the established interfaces for communicating with the host computer -- everything that more traditionally designed printers and scanners do for themselves is supplied by Windows, hence the fact that using them puts such a high load on the host computer's CPU. Add in the fact that unlike most stand-alone printers, the manufacturers have a deliberate policy of not publishing any details of either the printer interfaces themselves or the Windows APIs that they depend on for their operation, and you have a similar situation to the one that makes it extremely difficult to write open source drivers for many modern graphics cards.
"I bet if I went and picked up 5 of the sub-$100 printers right now and checked the Api's,I bet they are all called for the same parts over and over"
And I bet that I could pick up 5 computer monitors from companies that make TVs and find that none of them had inputs for an antenna, on-board tuners, speakers with their own amplifier, or any of the other things that come as standard with televisions. The fact that two devices from the same company have some common parts doesn't mean that they therefore have an identical set of interfaces or capabilities, hence the fact that a common set of core components being used in a wide variety of mobile phones hasn't produced a situation where manufacturer-supplied software for synchronising a Windows CE phone with a PC address book "just works" with those running Symbian.
"The single mothers and families that are making minimum wage will always see it as easier to pay me $50-75 a couple of times a year to de-hose their box than to pay $200+ to replace a printer/scanner/fax that already does what they need it to."
That's their choice, just as it was the printer manufacturer's choice to make a device with no on-board intelligence, only support one OS, and refuse to disclose details of their hardware interfaces to anyone outside the company. You charge for your services, so it is IMO a bit unrealistic to expect those who don't to spend large amounts of time (and possibly money o
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
I mean,if it requires the person have access to a windows disc for the necessary files ( like in virtual install situations) fine, I and a lot of VERY grateful repair techs will have no problem with that. Later this week I'm going to have to fix a 64 yr old grandma's machine(Win95,yuck!) who would be just perfect for something like DSL or puppy,as all she does is check emails from her kids and write emails to her friends out of state.But when I ran into her in the hall and she asked if I wouldn't mind helping her if I had the time(sweet little old lady,just so polite) I looked in her room and damned if there wasn't a Lexmark all in one sitting in the corner.
For someone like her Linux would be perfect-virus and hassle free.But she simply will never be able to afford an all in one that runs Linux,and that all in one is the only way she has to take her pictures off her Kodak and send them to her kids and get her grandkids pictures off the pc and into a frame,So I'm going to have to dehose the poor things pc and leave stuck in 9X crapland.
If there was only some way to virtualize printer drivers,she and a lot of folks who know almost nothing about the pc and have even less money could have a safe and reliable OS. I firmly believe that ultra cheap pc's like the everex will end up taking over the granny and joe sixpack crowd,if only we can figure out a way to get those damned printers to work.I've never had any trouble getting any other piece of hardware running,but those damned printers end up being the dealbreaker every time.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
" it seems to me,if we can build virtualization tools for Linux that can allow me with VERY little trouble to run an entire Windows OS and have it interact with the host OS in real time, then surely we can build something that allows me to run the stupid windows printer drivers the way I run those damned broadcoms."
You are assuming that the ability to do one thing proves that it's therefore possible to do something entirely different. Virtual machines of various types have existed since the 1950s because they're conceptually fairly simple, and the mainframe world has been virtualising operating systems for the best part of four decades because it isn't particularly difficult to do, especially when the ones being virtualised can already boot in a non-virtual way on the host hardware. Running software for one OS under an entirely different one is however (as the people who've been writing WINE will attest) a _much_ more difficult process, because one has to implement all the APIs that it interacts with on the other OS, something even Microsoft have trouble achieving between versions of their own operating systems despite having the entire source code to all of them, hence the fact that every new version of Windows "breaks" lots of software and drivers that ran perfectly well under the previous ones. If there was a simple solution to this problem, then one of the people with a deeper knowledge of both Windows and Linux than you or I would have already implemented it, just like somebody already implemented ndiswrapper to cope with some types of Winmodems.
"If there was only some way to virtualize printer drivers,she and a lot of folks who know almost nothing about the pc and have even less money could have a safe and reliable OS."
The only possible solution to this would be WINE or a similar Windows API layer for Linux, because (as I've said repeatedly) cheap all-in-one printers use the Windows API and Windows fonts to handle things that less crappy hardware does for itself. However, the fact that few if any drivers for printers bought a year ago will work under Windows Vista means that the chances of them running under WINE are minimal at best.
"I firmly believe that ultra cheap pc's like the everex will end up taking over the granny and joe sixpack crowd,if only we can figure out a way to get those damned printers to work.I've never had any trouble getting any other piece of hardware running,but those damned printers end up being the dealbreaker every time."
Software, irrespective of whether it's a driver or an application, is often a deal breaker both for Linux / OS X and newer versions of Windows won't run something people need to use. I don't think there'll ever be a guaranteed way of making those devices work with anything except the specific versions of Windows they were designed around unless their manufacturers decide that (for example) Macs become worth supporting, which will help with Linux due to the fact that OS X is conceptually far closer to it than either of them are to Windows. I wouldn't hold my breath though, because the fact that Macs are becoming much more common nowadays doesn't mean that those who buy them will want a cheap, slow, resource-intensive device that uses ludicrously overpriced refills when a few extra dollars gets something with much better performance and durability that's cheaper to run, and therefore costs the same amount (and quite frequently less) over its useful life.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.